American History: a Survey Course Handbook 2019 - Trinity College Dublin
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American History: a Survey
Course Handbook
2019American History: a Survey
Module Structure p 3
Basic Geographical Facts p 4-6
Aims and Objectives/
Course Lecturers/ Assistants pp 7 - 8
Lecture Lists pp 9 - 10
Examination Essays pp 11 - 12
Tutorials and
Tutorial Presentations pp 12 - 14
Reading Lists pp 14 - 33
Using the Internet p 34
2MODULE STRUCTURE
The present module offers a broad survey of the main developments in
the history of colonial America and of the United States down to the
1990s. It is available to be taken by all Senior Freshman Single Honors,
TSM and HPS students, as well as to Visiting Students.
Assessment of this module takes the form of
(i) An essay which is to be submitted by all participants in the
module (SH, TSM, HPS and Visiting students) on Mon 1st
April 2019. This essay will account for 20% of the overall
assessment of this module.
And
(ii) A three-hour examination which will be held in the
examining period commencing 22 April which will account
for 80% of the module’s assessment.
Written tutorial assignments will also be required in this course. Failure
to complete them may result in candidates being prevented from taking
the examination and receiving credit for the course.
3The United States: Basic Facts
Land area: 3,539,225 sq mi (9,166,601 sq km); total area: 3,718,691 sq mi
(9,631,420 sq km)
Population (2017 est.): 301,439,947 (growth rate: 0.9%); birth rate:
14.2/1000; infant mortality rate: 6.4/1000; life expectancy: 78.0; density per
sq mi: 85
Capital (2003 est.): Washington, DC, 570,898
Largest cities (2003 est.): New York, 18,498,000 (metro area), 8,085,742
(city proper); Los Angeles, 12,146,000 (metro area), 3,819,951 (city proper);
4Chicago, 8,711,000 (metro area), 2,869,121 (city proper); Houston,
2,009,960; Philadelphia, 1,479,339; Phoenix, 1,388,416; San Diego,
1,226,753; San Antonio, 1,214,725; Dallas, 1,208,318; Detroit, 911,402
Monetary unit: dollar
The United States of America
Languages: English 80%, Spanish 15% (2010)
Ethnicity/race: White: 211,460,626 (75.1%); Black: 34,658,190 (12.3%);
Asian: 10,242,998 (3.6%); American Indian and Alaska Native: 2,475,956
(0.9%); Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander: 398,835 (0.1%); other
race: 15,359,073 (5.5%); Hispanic origin:1 35,305,818 (12.5%)
Religions: Protestant 52%, Roman Catholic 24%, Mormon 2%, Jewish 1%,
Muslim 1%, none 10% (2012)
Literacy rate: 99% (2013 est.)
Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2007 est.): $13.84 trillion; per capita
$45,800.
Real growth rate: 2.2%. Inflation: 2.9%. Unemployment: 4.6%.
Arable land: 18%. Agriculture: wheat, corn, other grains, fruits,
vegetables, cotton; beef, pork, poultry, dairy products; fish; forest products.
Labour force: 153.1 million (includes unemployed); farming, forestry, and
fishing 0.6%, manufacturing, extraction, transportation, and crafts 22.6%,
managerial, professional, and technical 35.5%, sales and office 24.8%, other
services 16.5%; note: figures exclude the unemployed (2007).
Industries: leading industrial power in the world, highly diversified and
technologically advanced; petroleum, steel, motor vehicles, aerospace,
telecommunications, chemicals, electronics, food processing, consumer
goods, lumber, mining.
Natural resources: coal, copper, lead, molybdenum, phosphates, uranium,
bauxite, gold, iron, mercury, nickel, potash, silver, tungsten, zinc, petroleum,
natural gas, timber.
5Exports: $927.5 billion f.o.b. (2005 est.): agricultural products 9.2%
(soybeans, fruit, corn), industrial supplies 26.8% (organic chemicals), capital
goods 49.0% (transistors, aircraft, motor vehicle parts, computers,
telecommunications equipment), consumer goods 15.0% (automobiles,
medicines) (2003).
Imports: $1.727 trillion f.o.b. (2005 est.): agricultural products 4.9%,
industrial supplies 32.9% (crude oil 8.2%), capital goods 30.4% (computers,
telecommunications equipment, motor vehicle parts, office machines,
electric power machinery), consumer goods 31.8% (automobiles, clothing,
medicines, furniture, toys) (2003).
Major trading partners: Canada, Mexico, Japan, UK, China, Germany
6AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
Today the United States is the most powerful country in the world. This
course offers a critical and interpretative framework that explains why
this came to be so.
The aim of this module is to provide students with an introduction and
overview of the emergence and development of the United States, from
the settlement of the first colonies to the first Gulf War.
On successful completion of this module students should be able to
demonstrate that they have acquired the ability
• to order the main events in North American colonial history in
the history of the United States between the eighteenth and the
twentieth centuries.
• to assess the significance of the main trends and developments
in American society in this period
• to evaluate the critical turning points in the political and social
history of the period.
• to engage with the most influential books and articles pertaining
to the period.
• to present a coherent summary and assessment of the historical
debates and controversies relating to the period.
• to interpret with key primary documents in the political, social
and cultural history of the period.
• to interact with and apply key electronic databases and
resources available for the period
• to demonstrate a continuing engagement with the latest
developments and outstanding problems in the interpretation of
the period.
7Course Team:
The lecturer for the course is Prof. Ciaran Brady (Room 3116, email:
cbrady@tcd.ie).
Seminars will be conducted by Prof. Brady, Catherine Healy,
healyc7@tcd.ie, and Kyle Martin, martinky@tcd.ie.
The course co-ordinator is Prof. Brady who will welcome any feedback,
positive or negative, about the course during the year either directly or
through your student representatives.
8LECTURE LIST 2019
From Colonies to Empire: the course of
American History, 1607 - 1991
1. Inventing America: myth, historiography and history and the
formation of the United States
2. Starting out late: European Settlements in New Spain, New France,
the Chesapeake and New England, 1584 –1640.
3. Independents: colonial self-development, 1640 - 1690.
4. Imperial America: war and territorial growth, 1660–1763.
5. Revolutionary America: political, social and ideological upheaval,
1763 – 1776.
6. Republican America: revolutions and counter-revolutions, 1776 –
1815.
7. Expanding America: territorial and economic growth, 1790–1840.
8. Democratic America: political and social change, 1815 – 1840.
9. Divided America ; war, sectionalism, and slavery, 1840 – 1858.
10. Origins of the American Civil War, 1848 – 61.
911. The Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861-1870.
12. Industrial America: economic development and social conflict,
1860 - 1900.
13. Agrarian America: Crisis and Reaction: the nature of populism,
1865 - 1896
14. Progressive America: social change and the transformation of
American political culture, 1890 –1916.
15. Global America: the emergence of the U.S. as a world power, 1898
– 1940.
16. The illusion of prosperity: culture and society in the 1920s
17. An American crisis: the Great depression and the New Deal
1929 – 1940.
18.Militant America: World War II, the Cold War, and American
Foreign Relations,1940 – 60.
19. Affluent America: social and cultural developments, 1945 - 1960.
19. America in crisis: the 1960s.
20.Contemporary American Challenges: from ‘the Great Society’ to
‘the Reagan Revolution’.
21.Contemporary American Challenges: American foreign policy from
Cuba to the Gulf War 1961-1991.
10EXAMINATION ESSAY TOPICS
Assessment essays are due from all participants in the
Module (SH, TSM, HPS and Visiting Students)
on Monday 1st April 2019.
Essays should be approx.2,500 words long.
The essay topics for this Module are as follows:
1. Assess the social and economic consequences of colonial wars,
1660 - 1760.
2. Assess the development of colonial attitudes toward the Empire,
1660 - 1770.
3. Colonial defences of slavery.
4. What was new about American republican thought, 1770 – 1820?
5. Assess the accuracy of Tocqueville’s view of America.
6. What distinguished the Republican Party from earlier sectional third
parties?
7. Ethnic Cleansing? Federal policy toward native Americans 1800 -
1865
8. Critically assess the constitutional case for secession 1832 – 1861.
119. What were the successes and failures of Reconstruction?
10. Explain the rise of the Populist movement in the 1890s.
11. Women and society, 1870-1920;or Women and politics, 1920-
1968.
12. The press and political reform, 1920 - 60.
13. How accurate is the image of the 1920s as ‘an era of
complacency’?
14. US foreign policy, 1945 - 1974.
15. How accurate is the image of the 1960s as ‘an era of revolution’?
16. Account for the rise of ‘the New Right’ in American politics.
TUTORIALS AND TUTORIAL PRESENTATIONS
There will be six weekly tutorials in Hilary term, in the weeks 24 – 7,
(Weeks commencing 4 - 25 February) 29 - 30 (Weeks commencing 11-
18 March)
The seminars for American history: A survey will be conducted
by Ciaran Brady cbrady@tcd.ie , Catherine Healy, healyc7@tcd.ie,
and Kyle Martin, martinky@tcd.ie.
Documents and other material have been uploaded on Blackboard. But
students may also collect a copy of the reading for tutorial 1 from
the appropriate box outside the departmental office.
Discussion and debate are the fundamental catalysts of all tutorial
sessions, and thus there is a responsibility on students to read
12material and at least attempt to form some opinion on the subject being
studied.
Tutorials:
Week 24, Tutorial 1: Document: Nathaniel Bacon and his Critics
(1676).
Week 25, Tutorial 2: Document: The Constitution of the United States
(1789).
Week 26, Tutorial 3: Document: The Monroe Doctrine (1823)
Week 27, Tutorial 4: Document: The Lincoln-Douglas debates (1858).
Week 28, Reading week/Study week: No Tutorials
Week 29, Tutorial 5: Document: Henry Demarest Lloyd, “Wealth
against Commonwealth” (1894)
Week 30, Tutorial 6: Woodrow Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” (1918)
Please Note: Tutorials are an essential part of this course and
regular attendance and participation are mandatory. Students
failing to meet the departmental requirement on attendance in
tutorials or failing to submit any required tutorial work will be
13graded as ‘non-satisfactory’. Students should of course submit
any documentation of extenuating circumstances to the
departmental office, either themselves or through their College
tutor.
Assessment:
(i) Presentation: All students will present on a document over the course
of the term. Arrangements will be made in class and completion of this
task is a requirement of the course.
(ii) Tutorial Assignment: All students will be required to submit a piece
of written work and again this is compulsory and will be discussed in the
first tutorial class of term.
General Reading: 1607-1991
The reading list has been designed to include works which address all of
these themes and topics discussed in the lectures and tutorials. But
students are encouraged to develop their own interpretations, based on
their reading of primary and secondary sources, discussions in tutorials,
and other coursework. The use of I.T. is an integral part of the course
and students are encouraged to make the full use of JSTOR and other
on-line resources. This is a key objective of the course and by the end
of the year students should be proficient in accessing and interpreting
14primary and secondary sources relating to American history, both in the
library and on the web.
Single or two-volume overviews of American history are big
business in the American academic world. They are generally reliable,
careful and bland. An exception is Bernard Bailyn et al, The Great
Republic: a history of the American people which brings together
thoughtful and provocative essays from some of America’s top
historians, for example David Herbert Donald and Gordon Wood. This
two-volume set is recommended for purchase (and it will shortly be
available in the library). Other useful works are George Tindall,
America: a Narrative History, Eric Foner, Give me Liberty and P.S. Boyer
et al, The Enduring Vision all of which are comprehensive, accessible up
to date and contain very valuable bibliographies. Among the more
acceptable shorter alternatives are M.A. Jones, The Limits of Liberty and
Carl Degler, Out of our Past. Hugh Brogan, The Penguin history of the
United States is entertaining and mildly idiosyncratic. A recent highly
provocative single-volume interpretative essay on American history
which places war at the centre of the nation’s development is Fred
Anderson and Andrew Cayton, The Dominion of War: Empire and Liberty
in North America, 1500-2000
All of the above are available in paperback and one should
be purchased.
Anthologies of major articles or extracts from important books are
also a big commercial enterprise in U.S. publishing. By far the most
useful and up-to-date is the series Major problems in American History
15published by D.C. Heath because, in addition to the extracts from
secondary sources, each volume prints a large selection of primary
sources which are not readily available elsewhere. Of principal value to
this section of the course are K.O. Kupperman (ed.), Major problems in
American Colonial History, Richard D. Brown (ed.), Major problems in
the era of the American Revolution; Sean Wilentz, Major problems in
the Early Republic, 1787 - 1848, Michael Perman, Major problems in the
Civil War and Reconstruction, P.D. Escott and David R. Goldfield (eds),
Major problems in the history of the American South; Mary B Norton and
Ruth Alexander, Major problems in American women’s history Clyde A.
Milner et al (eds). Major problems in the history of the American West
and Kermit R. Hall (ed.), Major problems in American Constitutional
History. For an excellent collection of essays on historiography and
previously neglected areas of American history, see Eric Foner (ed.),
The New American History, 2nd ed. James McPherson’s To the best of
my ability provides a good overview of all the American presidents.
A. M. Schlesinger et al (eds) American Presidential Elections
contains a vast amount of analysis and quantitative data from the early
of the Republic to the near present. Two major and under-exploited
sources of extensive detailed information are the multivolume
biographical collections, The Dictionary of American Biography and its
recent successor, American National Biography.
The most important resource at your disposal is JSTOR. This
contains a wealth of important articles, all just a keyword search away.
The resource provides you with your own library and is also invaluable
for book reviews and essays reviewing the historiography.
16Selected Reading
(a) Colonial America
Alan Taylor, American Colonies is a superb, provocative and highly
informative survey which supplies a full and up-to date bibliography.
Slightly older but still highly stimulating in its perspectives is Gary B.
Nash, Red, White and Black: the peoples of early America. R.C.
Simmons The American Colonies and Richard Middleton, Colonial
America are good general overviews by English historians written for an
audience with little previous knowledge of American history. An
excellent bridge between American scholarship and those more familiar
with European (and particularly British history) is supplied in Jack P.
Greene, Pursuits of Happiness: the social development of early modern
British colonies and the formation of American culture. Jack p. Greene
and J.R Pole (eds), Colonial British America and S. Katz Colonial
America are excellent anthologies of important articles concerning
several aspects of colonial history. Earliest contacts with native
Americans are discussed in Karen Kupperman Settling with the Indians
and B. W. Sheehan’s Savagism and civility and from the perspective of
the Amerindians themselves in Francis Jennings, The Invasion of
America and Daniel Richter, Facing East: a native history of early
America and his more detailed The Ordeal of the Longhouse: the peoples
17of the Iroquois League in the era of European colonisation. Neal
Salisbury, ‘The Indians’ Old World: native Americans and the coming of
the Europeans’ in William and Mary Quarterly (July 1996) is a useful
overview of the literature. On the growth of the southern colonies see
Edmund S. Morgan Slavery and Freedom: the ordeal of Colonial Virginia,
Wesley Frank Craven’s incisive essay on White, Red and Black and his
more general survey of The Southern colonies in the seventeenth
century. Lois G. Carr et al (eds) Colonial Chesapeake Society is an
excellent collection of recent essays with a good historiographical
introduction. The development of black slavery is traced in Philip D.
Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade and its effects examined in Peter Wood,
Black Majority: Negroes in South Carolina and Winthrop Jordan, White
Over Black: American attitudes toward the Negro to 1812. Important
later changes in the Chesapeake are analysed at the top in Jack P.
Greene, Quest for Power: the Lower House in the Southern Colonies and
from below in Rhys Issac, The transformation of Virginia, 1740-90.
The evolution of New England is traced in two complementary
generational studies: Richard S. Dunn, Puritans and Yankees and Philip
Greven, Four Generations and in two complementary studies of
settlement, Richard L. Bushman From Puritan to Yankee and Kenneth
Lockridge, The New England town. The career of New England
Puritanism is traced in Edmund Morgan, The Puritan dilemma: the story
of John Winthrop and Larzer Ziff, Puritanism in America and
provocatively in Andrew Delbanco The Puritan Ordeal. Emery Battis,
Saints and Sectaries offers a dependable if slightly dated account of
Anne Hutchinson and the antinomian controversy. Intellectual and
ideological changes in New England of a broader nature are considered
in two excellent works, Perry Miller, The New England Mind (2 vols) and
T.H. Breen, The character of the good ruler. And their operation in the
18microcosm of the town of Salem are examined from different
perspectives in Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed
and John Demos, Entertaining Satan. Stephen Innes, Creating the
Commonwealth: the economic culture of Puritan New England offers a
useful corrective to the religious and intellectual emphasis of older
classical studies. The integration of the colonies within the Imperialist
system is surveyed in Jack P. Greene’s Peripheries & Centre and
analysed from two different viewpoints in Stephen S. Webb l676 and
Richard S. Johnston Adjustment to Empire.
The development of the colonies into provinces of the Empire in the
early eighteenth century is discussed in James F. Shepherd and Garry
Walton The economic rise of early America, James A. Henretta The
evolution of American Society and Jack P. Greene Pursuits of Happiness:
the social development of the early modern British colonies and the
formation of American culture. Specific examples of this phenomenon
are the subject’s of R.S Dunn, Puritans and Yankees: the Winthrop
dynasty of New England, R.L. Bushman, From Puritan to Yankee and
Michael Zuckerman, Peaceable Kingdoms: Massachusetts towns in the
eighteenth century. The crucial role of European migration in hastening
this development is the subject of two major studies: Bernard Bailyn,
Voyagers to the West: a passage in the peopling of America, and David
H. Fischer, Albion’s Seed: four British folkways in America. Ernest May,
The Enlightenment in America investigates colonial high culture while
Patricia U. Bonomi offers in Under the Cape of Heaven a valuable survey
of the forms of popular religion in the eighteenth century colonies.
Though its overall interpretation now seems outdated, several chapters
in Daniel Boorstin, The Americans: the Colonial Experience remain of
great value for an understanding of colonial culture.
19(b) Revolutionary America
Esmond Wright, Fabric of Freedom, 1763 - 1800 and Edmund Morgan,
The birth of the republic, 1763-1789 are dependable overviews. Robert
Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause, 1763 -1789 is a detailed and judicious
narrative. The administrative and political structures of the eighteenth
century Empire are surveyed in general in Lawrence H. Gipson The
coming of the American Revolution and examined in more detail in
Michael Kammen, Empire and Interest and A.G. Olson Anglo-American
politics. In a close but highly entertaining study Edmund and Helen
Morgan give an account of a crucial prelude to the revolution: The Stamp
Act Crisis. Bernard Bailyn’s seminal works, The Origins of American
Politics and The Ideological origins of the American Revolution analyse
the assumptions and arguments of the revolutionary gentry. The drift
from protest to revolution is examined from two different perspectives
in Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial radicals and
the development of American opposition to Britain, 1765-76 and Jerrilyn
Marston, King and Congress: the transfer of political legitimacy, 1774-
76. Different perspectives on the revolution in action are supplied by
Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America, in the general survey
by Edward Countryman, The American Revolution and in Robert A.
Gross’s detailed local study, The minutemen and this world. An
important study of a factor often under-rated in explanations of the
revolution is John Shy Toward Lexington: the role of the British Army in
the coming of the American Revolution. But by far the most challenging
alternative to the dominant view that the Revolution was an essentially
conservative movement has been provided by Gordon Wood, The
Radicalism of the American Revolution.
20(c) The New Republic
Merrill Jensen, The New Nation, 1776-1789, J.C. Miller The Federalist
Era, 1789-1800 and Marshall Smelser The Democratic Republic, 1800-
1815 provide a continuous account of the years between 1776 and 18l5,
though they are now somewhat dated. Robert Wiebe,The Opening of
American Society is a sophisticated and richly informative interpretative
survey of the years between 1789 and 1861. Daniel Walker Howe What
hath God wrought: the transformation of America, 1815 – 48 is a recent
addition to the Oxford History of the United States.
Peter Onuf The Northwest Ordinance and Daniel Szatmary, Shay’s
Rebellion examine respectively the achievements and the problems of
government under the Articles of Confederation. Leonard.W. Levy (ed)
Essays on the making of the Constitution provides a useful introduction
to the difficult but brilliant argument in Gordon Wood, The Creation of
the American Republic. Garry Wills Explaining America is a provocative
interpretation of The Federalist. Jackson T. Main offers a more
sympathetic account of The Anti-Federalists than that provided in Cecilia
M. Kenyon The Anti-Federalists. The continuity of ideological debate in
the young republic is traced in Richard Buel, Securing the revolution:
Ideology in American Politics, 1789-1815 and Lance Banning The
Jeffersonian Persuasion while its implicit economic assumptions are
revealed in Drew R. McCoy, The Elusive Republic. The emphasis on
ideals rather than interests shared in these different interpretations is
challenged by Joyce Appleby, Capitalism and a New Social Order. The
emergence of a legitimate party system is traced from a theoretical
perspective in Richard Hofstadter’s The idea of a party system and from
a practical one in W.P. Chambers Political Parties in a new nation. Both
21approaches are synthesised and considerably developed in John Hoadley
Origins of American Political Parties, 1789-1803. The major personalities
of the period are the subjects of some excellent biographical studies:
see Garry Wills, Cincinnatus (on Washington), Jacob E. Cooke,
Alexander Hamilton and Merrill Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New
Nation. For the closing years of the period Drew R. McCoy, The last of
the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy is quite
revealing. Persevering readers will find Ronald P. Formisano, The
transformation of American political culture very rewarding, but the
early chapters of Merrill Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay
and Calhoun provide a more accessible introduction to the issues
emerging in the period.
(d) The Jacksonian Era, 1820 - 40
The works of Wiebe and Howe cited above are of continuing relevance
to this section of the course. Charles G. Sellers, The market revolution
offers a new and extremely thoughtful overview of the entire Jacksonian
period. Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to
Lincoln, takes a different perspective but is equally illuminating. Harry
L. Watson Liberty and Property: the politics of Jacksonian America is
less powerfully argued and less detailed than either of these but is a
useful synthesis. Charles M. Wiltse The New Nation, and Glyndon Van
Deusen The Jacksonian Era though aging remain generally dependable
overviews. On the economic expansion of the early l9th century see
Douglas C. North The economic growth of the United States, Daniel
Boorstin, The National Experience and George R. Taylor, The
Transportation Revolution. Edward P. Pessen, Jacksonian America
offers a critical synthesis of the period’s social and political history. On
22Jackson himself see the biography by Robert V. Remini and the astute
essay in Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition; on the
ideological climate, Marvin Meyers, The Jacksonian persuasion. Two
excellent studies of principal Jacksonian issues are William Freehling
Prelude to Civil War (on Nullification) and William G. Shade Banks or no
banks. The view that the age of Jackson was ‘the age of the common
man’ is rigorously analysed in Lee Benson, The concept of Jacksonian
Democracy and Edward Pessen Riches, class and power before the civil
war. The political philosophy of Jackson’s major opponents is treated in
Daniel W. Howe The political culture of the American Whigs, while a
distinctive Jacksonian political ideology is revealed in Lawrence Kohl’s
The Politics of Individualism. The most profound analysis of the Jackson
era remains Alexis de Tocqueville’s magnificent contemporary account,
Democracy in America. A classic of political science, it is available in a
relatively cheap edition in the Library of America and is the one primary
text that all students of American culture should have on their shelves.
(e) American Societies l840-l880
A general survey of social development in this period is supplied by
Russell B. Nye in Society and Culture in America, 1830-60. More
interpretive are the relevant chapters in Robert Wiebe, The opening of
American society. See also W.R. Brock, Conflict and transformation,
1844-1877. Roy F. Nicholls, The Stakes of Power covers the same
period but is more narrowly political in focus.
On the early industrial and urban development of the north see Thomas
Cochran Frontiers of change, Richard E. Brown, Modernization: the
transformation of American life, and Richard.C. Wade The Urban
Frontier. Political and social tensions are considered in E. Pessen, Most
23uncommon Jacksonians. Michael Feldberg, The Turbulent Era, Ray
Billington’s The Protestant Crusade, and Paul Johnson, Shopkeepers
Millennium; and one of their effects in William Rorabaugh’s revealing
study The Alcoholic Republic. Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New
York City and the rise of the American working class, 1780-1850 is a
tour de force of social and ideological history, combining several
techniques of research and interpretation and should be read alongside
Edward K. Spann, The New Metropolis another important study of the
growth of New York.
This history of women is now the subject of several excellent books.
Among many see Mary P. Ryan, Sex and class in women’s history and
her detailed study of a New York community, Cradle of the middle class.
An overview of developments in the South is given in Clement Eaton,
The Growth of Southern Civilization. A more modern, controversial but
highly informative account of the South in the early nineteenth century
is given in William Freehling. The role of slavery in southern society has
been an issue of continuing controversy. F. O. Gattell (ed.) American
Negro Slavery and J. William Harris Society and Culture in the Slave
South provide a good introduction to the questions under debate, and
Kenneth M. Stampp The Peculiar Institution is a balanced general
account. But the most striking contributions to the debate have been
Eugene Genovese’s The political economy of slavery, The world the
slaveholders made and Roll Jordan, and R.W. Fogel’s Without consent
or contract. The effects of slavery upon southern white culture are
considered in two excellent studies: W.J. Cash, The mind of the South,
Bertram Wyatt-Brown Southern Honour. See also Bruce Collins White
society in the ante-bellum south.
Two very different explanations of westward expansion are offered in
Frederick Merk, Manifest destiny and mission in American history and
24Thomas Hietala, Manifest Design. The settlement of the west is
discussed in detail in Ray A. Billington, Westward Expansion and The Far
West Frontier. Two good studies consider the cultural implications of
the west for America as a whole Henry Nash Smith Virgin Land and Kevin
Starr, Americans and the California dream.
(f) The Civil War and Reconstruction
Two recent overviews of the causes of the conflict are Bruce Collins The
Origins of the Civil War, and Bruce Levine, Half Slave, Half Free: the
Roots of the Civil War. David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis, 1848-
1861 is a detailed but brilliant account. For the best single-volume
account of the war and its causes see James McPherson, Battle Cry of
Freedom, which is a beautifully written narrative that covers the period
from the 1840s through to Reconstruction. Structural difficulties in
American politics are discussed in Richard P. McCormack, The Second
Party-System and Michael Holt, The Political Crisis of the l850s. And
key issues are analysed in Mark Stegmaier, Texas, New Mexico and the
Compromise of 1850, William Gienapp, The Origins of the Republican
Party, David M. Potter, Lincoln and his Party in the Secession Crisis, and
Don Fehrenbacher Dred Scott. In The Coming of the Civil War and The
Growth of Southern Nationalism Avery Craven offers a sympathetic
account of the South’s problems. William L. Barney, The Road to
Secession is less kind. Stephen A. Channing, A Crisis of Fear: Secession
in South Carolina examines a crucial case. Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free
Labour, Free Men: the Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil
War. R. G. Walters The Anti-Slavery Appeal rescue northern opponents
of slavery from charges of hysteria or self-interest. David Donald’s prize-
winning biography of Lincoln is a model of its kind, and can be
25supplemented by his collection of insightful essays Lincoln reconsidered.
Perhaps the best introduction to Lincoln in G.S. Boritt’s edited collection
of essays The Lincoln Enigma, while the fundamental issues at stake in
the Lincoln-Douglas debates are discussed in H.V. Jaffa Crisis of the
House Divided. The drift toward war is acutely analysed in Kenneth M.
Stampp And the War Came. For those interested in recent fictional
representations of the New York draft riots see Ivar Bernstein, The New
York City Draft Riots. Battle Cry of Freedom is unsurpassed in its
account of the war, but see also McPherson’s other works on the period,
Drawn with the Sword, Marching Towards Freedom, Abraham Lincoln
and the Second American Revolution, and his excellent study of one of
the war’s bloodiest battles Antietam. There are also a number of
excellent multi-volume accounts of the war. See Shelby Foote’s three
volumes, The Civil War: a narrative, Bruce Catton’s The Coming Fury;
Terrible Swift Sword; and Never Call Retreat, or Robert Johnson and
Clarence Buel (eds) [four volumes], Battles and Leaders of the Civil War.
For studies of the key Confederates see Douglas S. Freeman, Robert E.
Lee and William C. Davis, Jefferson Davis. On slavery see Ira Berlin
(ed.), Freedom: a documentary history and his Slaves without masters.
One of the most important books on American history to be published
in the past ten years is David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: the Civil War
in American Memory. This shows the development of a Lost Cause
mythology after the Civil War to explain the trauma of defeat. See also
Gaines M. Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy. The problems of
Reconstruction have long been debated. For a good introduction and
overview see Eric Foner, Reconstruction. More detailed discussion can
be found in LaWanda Cox, Reconstruction and Politics, Principle and
Prejudice, and David Herbert Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction.
There is also much of value in Kenneth M. Stampp, The era of
26reconstruction, William Gillette, Retreat from reconstruction, and
especially in the ground-breaking work of C. Vann Woodward in The
strange career of Jim Crow and The origins of the new south.
(g) American Society, 1860 - 1900
S.P. Hays, The response to industrialism, 1885 – 1914, provides a brisk
well organized introductory sketch of the period. Robert Wiebe , The
Search for Order, 1877 – 1920 is a sophisticated and highly stimulating
survey. John A Garraty, The new commonwealth, l877-90 is more
detailed and more accessible. Walter Licht, Industrialising America is
an equally sophisticated treatment of the main economic force of the
period. Edward C Kirkland, Industry comes of age and R.A. Billington,
Westward expansion provide good general surveys of opposite aspects
of American economic , social and spatial development in the later
nineteenth century. Blake McKelvey, The urbanization of America is an
excellent synthesis. Maldwyn Jones, American immigration and John
Higham, Strangers in the land supply two different perspectives on the
same phenomenon. Henry Pelling, American labour is a thoughtful
survey by a British labour historian. Three books by Richard Hofstadter
(one of the most elegant of American historical writers), Social
Darwinism in American thought , The age of reform and The Paranoid
style in American politics have exercised much influence and stimulated
much controversy about this period. All are worth reading. Hofstadter’s
perspectives have been challenged, however, in several equally
compelling studies among which are C. Vann Woodward, Tom Watson:
agrarian rebel, and his The origins of the new south, 1877 – 1913 and
Laurence Goodwyn, Democratic promise: the populist movement . On
Populism see also James Turner, ‘Understanding the Populists’ in JAH,
1980.
27Hofstadter’s view of the Progressive Movement has been equally
challenged by the American Marxist historian, Gabriel Kolko in The
triumph of conservatism and in his Main Currents in Modern American
History and from a liberal standpoint in Arthur S. Link and Richard
McCormick, Progressivism
(h) Politics and Society 1900 - 1940
David K. Adams, America in the twentieth century and George E.
Mowry, The urban nation, 1920-1960 are a good general surveys but a
little outdated. Also of older vintage but still an excellent read is W.E.
Leuchtenberg, The perils of prosperity, 1914 - 32 . Two more modern
surveys are Michael E. Parrish, Anxious decades: America in prosperity
and depression, 1920 – 41 and John P. Diggins, The Proud decades:
America in war and peace 1941 – 60. Shorter but up-to-date and
valuable is James T. Patterson, America in the 20th Century Alan
Brinkley, Imaging the Twentieth Century is a highly stimulating book-
length essay.
Among more detailed and valuable works on the early twentieth century
see J.M. Blum, The Republican Roosevelt and his short biography of
Wilson. Two books by Edmund Morris will suffice the satisfy the curiosity
of anyone further interested in the complex character of Teddy
Roosevelt. See his The rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Thoedore Rex.
John Milton Cooper III, The warrior and the priest is a stimulating essay
in parallel and contrasting lives. Arthur S Link is the leading authority
on Wilson’s presidency, see his Woodrow Wilson and the progressive era
and The real Woodrow Wilson. Crucially important changes in American
political and social life in the second decade of the twentieth century is
examined in Daniel M. Smith, The great departure: the US and World
28War I , and an equally important shift in literary and cultural life is traced
in Henry Farnham May, The end of American innocence, 1912-17.
The contrasting patterns of American political and social change in the
1920s are traced in John Donald Hicks, Republican ascendancy and in
the early chapters of Donald McCoy, Coming of age: the US in the l920s
and l930s. See also Burl Noggle, Into the twenties and Paul A. Carter’s
short and highly provocative set of essays, Another part of the
twenties. On social and cultural mores in ‘the roaring twenties’ see
Paula Fass, The damned and the beautiful. An elegant and highly
entertaining account of the stock market collapse, its causes and
immediate consequences is J.K. Galbraith, The Great Crash.
David M. Kennedy, Freedom for fear: the American people in Depression
and War, 1929 – 45 offers an authoritative and up-to date narrative of
the period. William E. Leuchteburg is a leading authority on F.D.R and
his presidency see his FDR and the New Deal , In the shadow of FDR:
from Truman to Reagan, The FDR years and The New Deal: a
documentary history. Two detailed studies of the development of federal
economic policy in the late twenties and the thirties are A.U. Romasco,
The poverty of abundance and his sequel The politics of recovery . A. J.
Badger, The New Deal is a short but highly informative overview. An
older but still very rewarding biography of Roosevelt is James McGregor
Burns, Roosevelt: the lion and the fox Hardy (or voracious) readers may
wish to tackle Arthur Schlesinger’s three volume survey of The Age of
Roosevelt
29(i) American Foreign Relations and War, 1917 - 1945
The relevant chapters of Walter La Feber, The American Age supply a
good introduction with useful further bibliographical references. See also
Selig Adler, The uncertain giant. A conservative view of American
international aims and anxieties is expounded in Foster R. Dulles,
America's Rise to World Power and his Prelude to World Power; while a
more radical view of Wilson which has implications for the whole of
American foreign policy in this period is N. Gordon Levin, Woodrow
Wilson and world politics Several of such implications are explored in
Joan Hoff Wilson, American business and foreign policy, 1921 – 1933.
Robert Dallek offers a balance review of Franklin Roosevelt and
American foreign policy . On U.S relations with Latin America see Irwin
F. Gellman , Good neighbour diplomacy; and on rapidly deteriorating
relations with Japan see Walter La Feber, The clash: a history of US –
Japan relations. Pearl Harbour has for decades been a favourite
obsession of conspiracy theorists, for a balanced assessment (and for
references to the wilder shores of American historical interpretation) see
Gordon W. Prange, Pearl Harbour: the verdict of history. On the
diplomacy of the Second world war see John Gaddis Smith, American
diplomacy during the second world war, Edward M. Bennett, FDR and
the search for victory and Warren F. Kimball, The Juggler: Franklin
Roosevelt as wartime statesman. Daniel Yergin supplies a dramatic
account of a crucial event in wartime diplomacy in his Yalta. Gar
Alperovitz, Atomic diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam is highly critical
of US conduct in regard to the diplomatic use of the nuclear threat.
Martin Sherwin, A world destroyed: the atomic bomb and the grand
alliance is more measured.
30(j) Politics and Society , 1940 - 60
Richard Polenberg, One nation divisible supplies a shorter but highly
valuable account of this period in American domestic history. A more
detailed narrative is James T. Patterson Grand Expectations, 1945-74 .
Dewey Grantham, The US since l945: the ordeal of power and William
Chafe The unfinished journey: America since WW2.are good general
surveys.
John Morton Blum, V was for Victory: Politics and American culture
during WW 2 is good survey of a neglected period; see also Michael C.
Adams, The best war ever . On the Truman administration see Roy
Jenkins, Truman, B.J. Bernstein (ed.), The Truman administration: a
documentary history, Robert H. Ferrell, Harry S. Truman and the
modern American presidency and his shorter, Truman, M.J. Lacey, The
Truman presidency, Robert Donovan, Tumultuous years: the presidency
of Harry S. Truman, and David McCullough, Truman . Robert Griffith,
The politics of fear: Joseph R. McCarthy is a modern account of a
recurring motif in American history which had particular effects both in
the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. For Eisenhower see
Stephen E. Ambrose Eisenhower [2 volumes], R.A. Divine, Eisenhower
and the Cold War and R.A. Lee, Dwight P. Eisenhower. On the Kennedy
administration see among a host of studies Arthur Schlesinger, The
Imperial Presidency and his A Thousand Days [JFK] ; and two books by
Carl M. Brauer, JFK and the second reconstruction and his Presidential
transitions Irving Bernstein, Promises kept: JFK’s frontier, Robert
Dallek, JFK., Thomas Brown, JFK: History of an image and M.S.
Goldman, JFK: portrait of a president . On the assassination and its
never-ending controversy see Stephen Hoare, The assassination of JFK
and Max Holland, ‘After thirty years: making sense of the assassination’
31in Reviews in American History (1994) [JSTOR]. On political and cultural
upheaval in the ‘60s see Theodore Roszak, The Making of a counter
culture. Allen J. Matusow, The unravelling of America
(k) American Foreign policy: 1945 – 1965
The literature on the origins and development of the Cold War is of a
very high standard. Walter Lafeber, America, Russia and the cold war,
l945-80 and Thomas McCormick, America’s half-century are excellent
introductory surveys. John Lewis Gaddis, The long peace: an inquiry
into the history of the Cold War is an extremely thought provoking
study.
On the origins of the Cold War John Gaddis, The United States and the
origins of the Cold War and two books by Melvyn P. Leffler, A
preponderance of power and his Origins of the Cold War are
indispensable. And on the implications of its end see Michael J. Hogan,
The end of the Cold War and H.W., Brand’s revealingly entitled, The
Devil we knew
On the foreign policy of the Eisenhower administration see Robert A.
Divine , Eisenhower and the Cold War and on its legacy see Trumball
Higgins, The perfect failure: Kennedy, Eisenhower and the CIA at the
Bay of Pigs and David L. Anderson, Trapped by success: the Eisenhower
administration and Vietnam. On the foreign policy of the Kennedy
administration see Thomas Patterson ( ed) Kennedy’s quest for victory:
American foreign policy, 1961 – 63. On the Cuban crisis see Mark White
Missiles in Cuba and Graham T. Allison’s essay in managerial analysis,
Essence of decision . On the aspirational side of the New Frontier see
32Elizabeth Hoffman, All you need is love: the Peace Corps and the spirit
of the 1960s
(l) Popular Culture to Civil Rights, 1950 - 1980
Jim Cullen (ed.), Popular Culture in American History offers a good
general overview of the concept and its applications. On Hollywood see
John Belton, American cinema/American culture, Thomas Doherty, Pre-
code Hollywood: sex, immorality and insurrection and Anthony Slide,
Early American cinema.
On the struggle for civil rights see Taylor Branch, Parting the waters:
America in the King years, 1954 – 1963 and Robert Weisbrot, Freedom
bound: a history of America’s civil rights movement. See also Harvard
Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Equality, 1954-80, Robert Kluger, Simple
Justice: the history of Brown v. Board of Education and James T.
Patterson, Brown v. the Board of Education. The crucial role of the
Supreme Court in advancing Civil Rights is explored in Alexander M.
Bickel, The Supreme Court and the Idea of Progress and in his Politics
and the Warren Court and W.E. Leuchtenberg, The Supreme Court
Reborn. See also G. Theodore Mitau, Decade of decision: the Supreme
Court and the constitutional revolution and G. Edward White, Earl
Warren The important theme Hugh Davis Graham, Civil Rights and the
Presidency is accurately summarized in the title.
The struggle for the civil rights of women is recounted in William Chafe,
The American Woman and in his The paradox of change: American
women in the 20th Century . See also the excellent article by Paul Baker,
33‘The domestication of politics: women and American political society’ in
AHR, 1984. But some path-breaking primary texts remain powerful: see
Betty Friedan, The feminine mystique and Kate Millett, Sexual Politics
(m) From Vietnam to the first Gulf War
Stephen E. Ambrose, Rise to globalism is a fine introductory survey. See
also the closing chapters of Walter La Feber, The American Age. Henry
Kissinger, Diplomacy (and others)is both a monograph on and a primary
source for American foreign policy in the post-war period. The literature
on Vietnam is enormous. See among several David Anderson, The
Columbia guide to the Vietnam War, Guenter Lewy, America in Vietnam,
Cheng Guan Ang, The Vietnam War from the other side, Gabriel Kolko,
Anatomy of a war: Vietnam, the United States and the modern historical
experience, Jonathan Neale, The American war: Vietnam. On Johnson
and the Great Society see Robert Dallek’s two volume biography Lone
Star Rising and Flawed Giant and also Robert A. Caro, The years of
Lyndon Johnson [2 vols] and on the role of the war Herbert Y. Schandler,
The unmaking of a president: Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam.
On Nixon presidency, its fall and its consequences see Stephen
Ambrose’s two volume biography of Nixon, Fred Emery, Watergate ,
Stanley Kutler, The wars of Watergate and Seymour Hersh, Kissinger:
the price of power On Nixon’s foreign policy there is William P. Bundy,
A tangled web: the making of foreign policy in the Nixon presidency
The shift to the Right in the 1970s and 1980s is chronicled in Michael
Scahaller, Reckoning with Reagan. William Niskanen, Reaganomics is
34a good introduction to the Reagan presidency’s domestic policies. See
also Jeff McMahon, Reagan and the world: imperial policy in the new
Cold War (1984) and B.B. Kymlicka and J V. Matthews, The Reagan
presidency: an incomplete revolution? Robert Busby, Reagan and the
Iran-Contra affair supplies a lucid account, and James Chace, Endless
War supplies the broader context of American involvement in Central
American politics. Two books of central relevance to the final parts of
the course are David W. Lesch (ed.), The United States and the Middle
East and H. W. Brands, Into the labyrinth: the United States and the
Middle East.
(f) Journals
A number of excellent history journals are available on the web at
www.JSTOR.org. Students are encouraged to use these articles to
supplement the reading list above. For example the following journals
are all available online: American Historical Review; Journal of Southern
History; Journal of Military History; Journal of American History; African
American Review. See Using the Internet below.
USING THE INTERNET
The Internet is an excellent resource and students are encouraged to
use it to its full potential. However, like everything else on the web,
35some sites are better than others, so caution is advised. Perhaps the
single greatest website for students is www.JSTOR.org which contains
an excellent search engine as well as the full text of articles and book
reviews. This can also be accessed through the Trinity Library
homepage. Another useful site is that provided by the National Archives
and Records Administration (NARA). See
http://www.archives.gov/records_of_congress/internet_resources.html
for a full listing of available primary documents, a wealth of biographical
information, and invaluable material on the Constitution and
government of the United States. The Library of Congress also had an
excellent website: http://www.loc.gov. Here students can access the
complete Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln collections that can be
viewed as jpegs. Many of the presidential libraries also have some of
their documents available on the web.
Note: Any student who passes off work found on the Internet
as their own is guilty of cheating and will automatically fail the
course.
The following journals can all be accessed at www.JSTOR.org on the
Internet:
American Historical Review, American Quarterly, Eighteenth-Century
Studies, Journal of American History, Journal of Black Studies, Journal
of Economic History, Journal of Modern History, Journal of Negro
Education, Journal of Negro History, Journal of Southern History, Journal
36of the History of Ideas, Military Affairs, Negro American Literature
Forum, Renaissance Quarterly, William and Mary Quarterly, Reviews in
American History, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, African American
Review.
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